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Stevens: “Most Benefited From Preseason Will Be Me”

Coach Brad Stevens is as much a rookie as Vitor Faverani, Phil Pressey, and Kelly Olynyk are. He comes to the NBA with zero experience in the league, but after 6 preseason games he’s getting the feel of what coaching in the pros will be like.

Stevens is one hell of a basketball mind and a great teacher of the game and those are the factors that fans and the Celtic front office expect will translate to the NBA, as well as his passion for the game.

With Stevens having no experience at all, preseason is huge for him.

Many differences lie between college and the pros. To name a couple easy ones: college ball has two 20 minutes quarters while the NBA has four 12 minute quarters, and the college shot clock is 35 seconds while the NBA’s is just 24.

So an adaptation to this new way of basketball needs to happen with Stevens, and the faster that goes the better off the Celtics will be.

Which is why Stevens’ remarks after yesterday’s game were pretty encouraging.

“I feel 10 times better tonight than I did the first time we played Toronto as far as just the way that the game flows.”

It’s going to be a process, but after just 6 meaningless games, Stevens has accomplished a whole lot according to himself. He has to get a feel for timeouts, for rotations, for the NBA pace, and much more things that just are much different in college.

His approach to the essence of the game will probably not change all that much – play with all your effort and play as a team. But other things will change, and those won’t be changes to which he can adapt overnight after watching some tape.

Preseason, then, has had one major target to help. The coach.

“I feel like the person who’s probably benefited the most from the preseason will have been me.”